Licensing chiefs claimed a victory when permits for two new bars on Grey Street were issued that included an agreement to charge at least £1.25 per unit of alcohol.

But booze industry law specialists say the move is “questionable” and could lead to intervention from the competition authorities.

“It’s price fixing and they are not allowed to do it,” lawyer Peter Coulson told the trade paper, M and C Report.

The stringent conditions have been placed on the Grey Street Café Bar and Grill, which is owned by a firm backed by multi-millionaire “Champagne” Joe Robertson, the man credited with creating Newcastle’s “party city” image.

Unveiling the rules, Coun Henri Murison said introducing such conditions for new licences was “sending a clear signal that we want to move away from the Geordie Shore image”.

But both Mr Coulson and Graeme Cushion, of licensing solicitors Poppleston Allen, have suggested that if the new bars decided to ignore the price decreed, the council may not be able to do anything about it – particularly after the European Commission sent a nine-page legal opinion to the British Government in November saying that introducing minimum pricing, even at the much lower rate of 45p per unit, would be illegal.

Elsewhere in the city, drinkers and landlords expressed their shock after a bar offered a 7% breakfast stout for just £1-a-pint – equivalent to just 25.1p per unit.

Customer Matt Dinnery, 23, from Heaton, said he was outraged by the price, which Pacific House charged for Morpeth-based Anarchy Brew Co’s Sublime Chaos.

“Not only was the bar cheapening itself, but it was also devaluing the beer and the brewery by the pricing,” he said.

But staff at the Northumberland Road pub said the offer was not something they would ever typically do but as ale, however strong, was something customers were unlikely to binge drink, and it would otherwise have gone off, the decision was made to reduce the price from £3.50-a-pint.

Managers were keen to point out that they were not encouraging the sale of cheap alcohol and their cheapest pint was usually a £1.95 sub-4% best bitter produced by Heddon-on-the-Wall based Wylam Brewery – equivalent to almost double the Government’s suggested minimum. Yet had the beer been served in either of the two new bars on Grey Street, the minimum it could be sold for, if following the £1.25 unit price, would be £4.98-a-pint. And if a 45p minimum was brought in, the lowest such a drink could be sold for would be £1.79.

Asked to respond to the legal experts’ comments, Newcastle City Council’s director of regulatory services, Stephen Savage, said the authority had “dealt with these two applications on their individual merits following due process”.